James Blain 0:00

Well, about halfway to the airport, this person starts looking at their phone, like they've just gotten the most important text of their life, and all of a go, Hey, hey, you get my text and this person clearly not so great, but think goes. Sure, yeah. I have your text right here, Jonathan. And he goes. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And at this point, he's literally swerving into the other lane, practically hits another car. My wife and I are terrified, and I'm like, uhoh, what happens? All of a sudden I, I make mistake. And I said, what? And he goes, I make mistake.

Ken Lucci 0:55

Good afternoon, ground transportation podcast audience. It's Friday afternoon at one o'clock. That can only mean one thing. I'm spending quality time with my buddy, James Blaine from PAX Training, the ultimate chauffeur and CDL driver training company, and we're going to hit where you live and we're gonna talk about, today's episode is called A Tale of two Chauffeurs and a Tale of. Industry inconsistency. So let me send it to you, James. James, how you doing?

James Blain 1:27

I'm good. How are you buddy? I know for everybody else it's Wednesday for us. This is like our Friday. It's our favorite day of the week. I couldn't be more excited to be here with you, buddy.

Ken Lucci 1:35

totally, totally. No question. I've got like 19 NDAs to send out, but That's okay. I need to stop. Yep.

James Blain 1:41

I don't know about you, but my week has been absolutely sprinting. I know we both have meetings, like as soon as we get done recording, we're right onto meetings, but this is the highlight of the day for me. I, I look forward to this.

Ken Lucci 1:52

So we first uncovered this tale of two chauffeurs when we were talking about our experiences out in Las Vegas. So as George W. Bush would say, we had dramatically different experiences

James Blain 2:05

There was no Strategery.

Ken Lucci 2:06

there's no strategery whatsoever. So why don't you tell, why don't you tell us what happened and go into as much detail as you'd like.

James Blain 2:13

so I had in 10 years in this industry in a lifetime of riding in vehicles, a new and, not so exciting experience. So I had my wife with me. We were taking everything, had to go to the airport. So I booked a vehicle. Figure, it'd be easy. Figure things would be good. Now, for anybody that hasn't heard this before, I am that passenger that the second you text me, you're outside. I'm in the car, we're gone. And because my whole life revolves around spot times and 15 minutes early, if you are there 15 minutes early, there's a good chance I'm gonna wanna just hop in and go.'cause I run 15 minutes early in my own life. So morning comes around, it's an early morning flight. Get my text, Hey, I'm out front. Go downstairs. We have all of our trade show stuff. So I'm lugging a giant case in one arm. I've got another case in another arm. my wife's got the big bag with all the clothes and I walk out

Ken Lucci 3:09

your, you make your wife carry a bag.

James Blain 3:12

Well, I only have two arms, so I give her the lightest bag to roll on the ground.

Ken Lucci 3:16

okay, fine. I don't know why that woman stays with you, but keep going. I apologize.

James Blain 3:21

for those of you that can't see on video, It might be the face, So anyways, we're staying at the MGM. I walk outside as soon as I walk out the door. On my right there is a electric vehicle. I think it's a Rivian Chauffeur's got a sign looking good. Sharp has a name on it. I don't see my name. I look on the left. There's an SUV at this point, I'm like, I don't know what it is. And I'm like, Hey, and, and by the way, we're gonna change all the names, all everything. I said, Jonathan, and, and they don't kinda look. And so I, I walk over and I say, Hey, are you Jonathan? Oh, okay. Yeah. Hey, I'm James. I'm your passenger. They grab everything. Walk to the back of the vehicle. We get everything loaded in. Everything's so far so good. We start driving. Well, about halfway to the airport, this person starts looking at their phone, like they've just gotten the most important text of their life, and all of a go, Hey, hey, you get my text and this person clearly not so great, but think goes. Sure, yeah. I have your text right here, Jonathan. And he goes. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And at this point, he's literally swerving into the other lane, practically hits another car. My wife and I are terrified, and I'm like, uhoh, what happens? All of a sudden I, I make mistake. And I said, what? And he goes, I make mistake. And I'm like, what? And he goes, yeah, you say my name, and I'm like. No, I said Jonathan, right? He gives me his name completely and totally different, right? At this point, we figure out, oh no, we're in the wrong vehicle. Where are you

Ken Lucci 4:48

You are in the wrong

James Blain 4:49

I'm in the wrong vehicle now. I lost sleep over this. When I tell you I lost sleep, I lost sleep. I've been doing this for 10 years. As the passenger, I walk out, I have a text that says, I'm out front. There's two vehicles. One of them has a person with a sign and a name, not my name, the other person, I literally asked their name twice. I gave them my name. Right? So as far as a passenger is concerned, I, I still don't know how much more you can do other than, Hey, is this your name? Yes, this is my name. Yes. You know, at that point, okay, we're good. So what ends up happening at this point is this person is now texting their actual passenger. He's practically racing to the airport Now. Look, the saddest part is up until that point, scabs doing great. He was doing fine. We get to the airport. He doesn't pull up to my flight. He didn't pull up to Southwest. He pulls up to the absolute first curb. At least he was nice enough taking me to the right terminal. He's getting me outta the car as quick as possible, and I'm going, Hey, look, no big deal mistakes happen. Gimme your office number. I'll call the office. I'll call the, the company that, that I was dealing with. We'll get it all sort. He goes, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't tell Boss. Don't tell the boss. And I'm like, okay. my wife kind of, when we talked afterwards, her thought was, we think this probably isn't the first time something like that's happened to this guy. So he's terrified for me. I'm like, Hey, everything was fine. Again. he's helping me unload the luggage to get me outta the vehicle, right? But again, he comes back, unloads the vehicle. Hell, I felt bad. I tipped the guy other than picking me up, but I wasn't the passenger. I'm like everything else. If you would've picked up the right guy, he would've been over the moon with you.

Ken Lucci 6:35

so. So I want to contrast that with my experience.

James Blain 6:41

Was it with the right chare?

Ken Lucci 6:44

Okay. So sometimes I use a different name because I don't want people to comp me'cause they will comp me. But in this case I used my regular name I made the appointment online, by the way. You know, the corporate portal was pretty good to use. I made the reservation online the day before and I'm being picked up at 11 o'clock. I get outside at 11 o'clock. there are five black SUVs. Go figure, you know, we're in Vegas, we're in a lot. There's a lobby to hotel, five SUVs, and there's a guy standing there with Ken l on a tablet. Okay. There's no question there. Well now let me go further. I get closer to him. He said, good morning. Are you Mr. Lucci? Yes I am. My name is so and so. I'm here to take you to the airport. can I assist you with your luggage? Every service queue that could be hit. The guy hit, so he takes my luggage and by the way, I had two, three bags, my booth in two bags and then, seven days worth of luggage.'cause I was on the road, right?

James Blain 7:47

so, so back to the, back to earlier. You only have two arms. Two. How are you carrying three bags? Ken,

Ken Lucci 7:52

It wasn't, wasn't, wasn't. I had the bellman with a cart, by the way. I had the bellman with a cart. Vegas is not cheap to travel anyway, so very respectful with the luggage. Used two hands, made sure that he didn't bang the luggage on the vehicle. The vehicle was a 2024 Escalade, but it was spotless. You could tell this guy is really. He, he knows he's grabbing the luggage and he's placing it in the vehicle. grabs the door for me. Ms. Lucci you please use your seatbelt. Gets in the car, nice, quiet, classical music is playing. Would you like something else on the stereo? Is this okay for you? Yes, it's fine. Are you comfortable? Is the temperature okay?

James Blain 8:38

Trip overview.

Ken Lucci 8:40

Yes, it's great if you want to adjust the temperature. Your controls are right there next to your spring water. We're going to American Airlines. Is that correct, sir? Yes. your flight is on time. I checked it right before you got in the car. Your flight is on time. We have plenty of time to get you there. Get to the airport. The guy, literally, I mean, he, he was, he was ex-military. Along the way. I did say to him, you know, how long have you been working for X, Y, Z? And he said, probably about six or eight months. But I worked for other companies in the past and I said, curious, how do you like this company? He says, they treat us fantastically. Immediately, what comes to my mind is the company owner there from a cultural perspective, understands he has two customers. One is the actual U end user and the second is his chauffeurs. So I said, just curious, why did you leave the other company? He said, they actually paid me more, but they treated us like crap. So I'm saying he said, and he didn't. He said, I, I don't wanna tell you the name'cause you know

James Blain 9:46

People quit bosses, not jobs.

Ken Lucci 9:48

And so he gets me to the airport. The last thing he says to me is, Mr. Lucci, is there anything else I can do for you? I felt like saying, is this guy read my book? Because that's the last thing. That's the last cue. Have a great day. Save travels. I, I almost said, did the owner of this company give him a cue that I was in the business? But he didn't. I texted the guy afterwards and I said, you know, great job. But my whole point is there isn't anything that my guy did that costs that company any more money. Okay? He was trained properly on the proper service queues. Number one, introduce yourself. Use the client's first and last name, number two, make sure they're comfortable in the vehicle. Number three, confirm the location and the flight information right? and his driving was fantastic. I mean, his driving was great. No problem. You know, I did the session on av. To me, that's not the threat. The threat in this industry is mediocre service.

James Blain 10:55

Well, when I did my presentation right after yours, my big reveal moment when we're talking about, the state of service in the industry being right. The whole service industry right now is crap. we talked about av, we talked about document eight. I kind of tee all this up and the big reveal is. Chauffeurs are going to matter more in the next 10 years than they ever had. Let's take your experience and tie over a couple things. Well, but not only quality. A lot of my issue would've been solved by what happened with you. If everyone out there would've had a name sign, I wouldn't have had to be going, hey, are you Jonathan? Right? That wouldn't have been an issue. Then let's go one step further. We get everything loaded in the vehicle and he says, Hey, I have you going to Southwest. Oh, okay. Yes, no. Or, Hey, I have you going to American Airlines. No, I'm on Southwest. Oh, I'm so sorry. Now what ends up happening, I verify the name coming out. This guy struggles with English,

Ken Lucci 11:52

Which is, by the way, let's just say it. It's a big issue in our industry.

James Blain 11:56

it is, but a lot of what we're talking about would've solved it because if there would've been a name sign, it wouldn't have mattered whether or not English was his first, second, or even third language. That wouldn't have been a big deal.

Ken Lucci 12:08

And if he used your name, if he had said, are you Mr. And Mrs. Blaine?

James Blain 12:13

Yep. and what's so crazy is we found out later that he had one female passenger that he was supposed to pick up. We figured that out. over the course of this ordeal, now I come out, I'm the guy. I'm giving my name, I'm giving everything, and we hop in the vehicle. I can tell you right now that female passenger's name probably was not James Blaine. Just taking a guess.

Ken Lucci 12:37

this is not, you know, people listening, oh, this is an anomaly. This doesn't happen. Yeah, it happens all the time. And, you know, you're at a crowded airport and an operator may say, well, you know, my logo was on the side of that eagle. I don't know what your damn logo

James Blain 12:52

But But that's bull because here's the thing, we use affiliates like crazy. When I looked at that vehicle, I didn't see the company's logo on the slide, and I didn't even flinch because they didn't know it was me. I booked it through their regular channels just like you did. I didn't want anything comped. I just wanted to get a ride. I just wanna see how this company does, right? So I did not even flinch. Now, here's the other thing that's huge here. If we would be talking rideshare on that app, it would say, this vehicle, this guy's name, this, everything there on the, that's not what I.

Ken Lucci 13:28

no, let's talk about industry consistency. You travel much more than I do, but when I travel, I tend to travel two or three cities.

James Blain 13:37

Yep.

Ken Lucci 13:37

So I'll take a flight to Chicago and I'll get picked up and I'll get a text message from the driver. And I'll take a flight to Phoenix and I don't get a text message from the driver, or I get something completely different. Whereas one of the things that we both identified that the TNCs have right, is their technology and their consistency. I mean, if you are a drunken Uber passenger and you get in the wrong vehicle, you kind of deserve what you get. But at the end of the day, they're telling you the driver's name and the license plate number. Okay? why can't we get that similar consistency across our industry?

James Blain 15:15

so my answer to that is something I have been going on tirades about in talks for

Ken Lucci 15:20

You, I, I,

James Blain 15:21

Me, yeah. Tirades. Well, TIR get soapbox out. no, here's the thing though. I think the difference is for Uber, this is a software level thing. The software knows the driver's vehicle, knows everything. Now, unfortunately, what we're seeing, look, I went back to my email later on because of course I, once I get to the airport, I'm settled. I'm on the plane. I'm clearing up my inbox, 15 minutes, right? So literally, my pickup was at eight 15 at 7 45, which was 15 minutes before I walked downstairs. When I'm packing everything up, they sent me an email. That had the chauffeur's name, the

Ken Lucci 16:04

But why not a text me. I don't understand

James Blain 16:06

It is 2026. If you think 15 minutes before the spot time, I'm gonna be able to go clean out my inbox

Ken Lucci 16:14

I'm sitting on my Outlook. No, I'm

James Blain 16:16

Look, and, and, even with Apple AI on my phone, that prioritizes messages. It doesn't pick that up. when I walk downstairs, I'm literally going off of the ding on my phone. That is The problem, and, and this is exactly what I'm getting at, is our software isn't sending that text message. Rideshare Software sends that text, sends that notification, Hey, you've got Timmy, he's in a Honda Civic with license plate 1, 2, 3, 4, and it's black. Our software in our industry sends it as an email. But that chauffeur is the one that sends the text. And the problem with that, and we found this out, is when I talk to the company to actually clear this up, they have on their telematics, me getting into the other car, they don't have my stuff being loaded. But apparently what I was told was, it's common if we sit there too long, we get ran off. So they, this chauffeur must have been off to the side, sent you the text, and then he pulls in. What apparently he didn't understand was. When I get the text, you're outside. I'm already sitting in the lobby ready to go, and what happens, he ends up with video of me on their dash cam, him pulling up and me getting into and leaving in the wrong vehicle. So I think the problem there becomes, and this, like you said, is a consistency problem, and the chauffeur is not sending, hi, I'm James. I'm in, such and such vehicle with such and such plate. I'm out front and I'm not exactly where I need to be when I send that. It is not like the software level stuff that Rideshare has and that's the consistency

Ken Lucci 17:52

so, to me it's, it's inconsistent protocol across the entire industry. Well, I don't do it that way. that way. that's number one. Number two, there's technology limitations because I can't, I'm not tracking the vehicle coming to me. I don't have multiple ways

James Blain 18:08

I'm not gonna install 40 apps for the 40 cities I

Ken Lucci 18:11

Right. I mean, the real estate on iPhones is getting really, really valuable. Meaning I'm not gonna download 75 different apps. So, it's definitely lack of consistent processes and protocols. The second is kind of technology shortcomings. And the third to me is completely miscommunication on the service cues.

James Blain 18:35

Well, and, and we're talking about innocent mistakes, right? One of the things that we talk about and we train for in PACS is not so innocent mistakes. Ride theft is a thing. You'll get guys in an airport that'll walk up and say, oh yeah, I'm Mr. Jones. And now all of a sudden that passenger and, and that's one of the big reasons that we've trained people since day one for 10 years. Now, the second you meet that passenger. You confirm, you make sure you've got the identity, you do your trip overviews, you are, you are making sure you have the right passenger. The problem is when you've got high traffic areas like that, the connections get tough. But the other thing is you have technology barriers. Beyond that, I was in New York City and I had a guy that was doing a curb pickup, and this guy sent me a picture of his dashboard. And I was like, why in the hell are you sending me your dashboard? Like, I don't, I don't need to know the mileage on the vehicle. What I didn't realize until later when I looked at it is he wasn't trying to send me a picture of the dashboard. He apparently had portrait mode on his iPhone on, and when he took the picture, the focus was on the dashboard. What he was trying to send me a picture of was the big pillar that said a four or whatever, letter and number it was where he was parked. instead of having that standardized and having that figured out, this guy thinks he's being helpful. Instead, I'm going, what in the hell? So, and, and, and again, these are things that come up that as someone who has done training for a long time, now, I can tell you this is not stuff that typically gets covered in training because there's this assumption, oh, they know how to use an iPhone. All they know how to text. that communication layer is

Ken Lucci 20:23

Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm, I'm throwing bullshit on that because the best service experience, no, the best service experience, the best service experiences are extraordinarily choreographed to the point of muscle memory. And I use three analogies to describe this. One of the most legendary steakhouses in the country Burn Steakhouse in Tampa. to be a waitress or waiter at Burn Steakhouse in Tampa is an eight week training program. Eight week training program, okay? And they, for a steakhouse, they don't care how much experience you have as a waiter or a waitress, or where you've worked. You're going through the eight weeks, and by the way, they pay you good money. they pay you the equivalent of your hourly plus average tips to go through their eight weeks of

James Blain 21:11

you're not losing money to go through training.

Ken Lucci 21:13

But you know what, and it is funny. I, at one point a thousand years ago, I asked the owner why, and he said, look, you cannot believe, the waiters or waitresses that have worked for larger restaurants than ours. They actually have bad habits that we do not want them bringing into our restaurant

James Blain 21:32

But experience doesn't equal quality. Okay. You've hit on a couple really important things that I beat to death and will continue to beat to death. The first is assuming that someone with experience is trained.

Ken Lucci 21:44

It's dangerous.

James Blain 21:45

if this guy worked at another steakhouse and they tossed him out there, and we see this happen at companies all the time, oh, he has a CDL. He must have gotten good training. No, they got him to the point where he could barely pass the test. They tossed him out on the road. And what he's learned is all based on what he's experienced. So if there's something new, if there's something he's not prepared for. We see that all the time, and the problem is their failure now becomes your liability.

Ken Lucci 22:11

the second analogy I'll use is when the lovely and talented Julie Weintraub, the owner of one of the biggest jewelry stores in Tampa, tricked me into agreeing to dance with the stars,

James Blain 22:25

I totally thought that was going somewhere else,

Ken Lucci 22:27

no, she tricked me to be part of her charity. I was trying to get their business, and she said, listen. She said, right, exactly. I was voluntold. She told me to do it.

James Blain 22:37

you said that the beautiful jewelry. I thought you were gonna say, Hey, tricked into a marriage. You had

Ken Lucci 22:41

no. no. no one ever turns down the lovely Julie Wine troub for anything, and you can't just, she said, well, gorgeous.

James Blain 22:49

It's getting

Ken Lucci 22:49

no to her for anything. When I first started to go into dancing lessons, I was like, you know, I have two left feet. You're not gonna be able to train me to do this. And the, and the, and the dance and the dancing coach was fantastic. And she said to me, Tiana Ramirez, she said, look, I promise you by the end of the 20 lessons, our routine, which we had to choreograph will be muscle memory to you. Here's my whole point. What we're talking about is truly muscle memory when you practice it. It becomes second nature. But to your point, somebody comes in, we're so desperate for labor. Somebody comes in and said, yeah, I used to chauffeur for x, y, Z company. Okay. And we're all making the assumption that they have decent training over there. And the reason why Burn Steakhouse says, no, I don't care where you've worked. You're going through my eight weeks and I'm gonna pay you to go through it. Okay. I'm gonna pay you to go through it because they have a very, very choreographed experience. And by the way, at the end of the training, they are some of the highest paid waiters and waitresses in the city. It's a coveted position. So

James Blain 24:02

you have so many things going on there,

Ken Lucci 24:03

right, but what happened to us is not, you can't point to one thing. it's definitely inconsistency in the industry as far as.

James Blain 24:10

I, I think you, you could probably point to a couple things. I think first and foremost, one of my favorite sayings that I've coined is when transportation's done right, transportation is transparent. if everything would've gone to plan, right. That chauffeur would not have been the best chauffeur I ever had in my life. But, but if, if Jonathan, right. Again, not his real name, was actually my chauffeur a sign that day, it would not have been the best trip ever. But he, he would've been an all right chauffer. There's plenty of room for improvement, but he would've been an all right chauffeur. What kind of goes on here though is a couple things. anytime I hear we only hire with experience, I get terrified. And I think that one of the biggest things that we have working against us as an industry is how segmented we are.

Ken Lucci 24:59

What do you mean?

James Blain 25:00

What if you look at rideshare, even if you look at what larger transportation networks are trying to do, they are trying to impose a single entry point, a single standard They don't wanna have a provider in every single city and manage 50 different contracts to a procurement person. that's not a good deal for them. What they want is one point that is going to be everything they deal with, and then they're going to handle it. It's the reason we've had before, even, you know, we talk about rideshare a lot. But before even that you've had, you know, you had the large networks that were the ones doing the vetting. They were the point. They would pass it all down. What I think we've seen happen is, in the industry, we've seen the affiliate game allow anyone to kind of go into that business and say, Hey. I can take care of you anywhere. And we've seen the affiliate game become one where, and I've ranted raved about this, so we won't get on that soapbox, but I see all the time on Facebook, Hey, I got a trip in, uh, Orlando. I need it at 6:00 AM and it's 7:00 PM First person to do it gets it right. We've become this segmented industry and there's not the standards and we don't have. The same types of guardrails that some of these others have through software and other means. Here's my point. Imagine if that was a show I couldn't make it to, and it was my wife by herself, halfway to the airport. This guy swerves in the other lane about crashes. The car figures out it's the wrong one. Drops her off at the wrong terminal, right? It could have been so much worse. Imagine if that's her experience with the black car industry, if she's not in the industry, right? if we were in medical, right, let's say we were at a medical convention, that wouldn't be her experience or her impression of that chauffeur, of that trip that would taint the whole image of the entire industry.

Ken Lucci 28:07

Yeah, because it actually was a worse experience than if she had a similar vehicle. Vehicle in TNC.

James Blain 28:14

Correct. And again, the TNC, that would've been a lot tougher because instead of hearing, Hey, I'm outside, and having to try and guess, it would've been, Hey, there's a black, you know, whatever it is with this license plate. That was one of the big innovations in the rideshare space. One of there. Big, huge innovations was, Hey, we know that people get antsy. Just wondering when this thing's coming, we're gonna give'em a map, we're gonna let'em track it, we're gonna tell'em all the vehicle information. And to this point, we have seen, even though there was that massive settlement against Uber, Uber still rolled out a women's focus platform with even more guardrails. And, and again, we're talking apples to oranges, but. If in that chauffeur space something like that happens, they're not the chances of it getting held against that one company. Oh, it was just a bad experience with them. That could be, Hey, black car's just not worth it. Why did I pay$200 for this trip?

Ken Lucci 29:14

It is not worth the difference in price. You're right. sadly, as much collaboration as there is in the industry and there is good collaboration, I don't think there's enough collaboration at the top. I think the top networks, I know that when I, this is dating me, but when I was in the business as an operator. There was probably a half a dozen networks. Okay. true networks. and you definitely built your business to try to get network business that was a big deal,

James Blain 29:47

I remember when Cadillacs were the thing and there was a network who remained unnamed that everybody had to go out and buy Cadillacs. And I remember there's a big push in the industry. Everybody had to turn over their fleet'cause

Ken Lucci 29:56

Correct. Correct. And the sad part is that if we don't come together as an industry, it doesn't matter if people at the bottom come together, meaning the one or$2 million operators in their 20 groups or whatever coming together cannot influence the industry. What's gonna happen is that the protocols of consistency have got to be, built and emphasized at the top. Okay. For the better. You know, it's the whole rising tide lifts all boats theory. Okay. But I think that it's not a small thing. I always make the case that any company can sell differentiation and get a premium price if there is premium value. Okay. We are getting dangerously close to being a commodity, a total commodity where there is literally no difference. The consumer sees no difference, and that's more dangerous than anything.

James Blain 31:07

Well, and it's a training issue, right? Because the difference between your experience in mine, right there, it, it just, we

Ken Lucci 31:16

that guy had muscle memory. That

James Blain 31:17

well. And, it's a couple weak points in the chain that broke for me. I had a text that this person was outside. They weren't outside yet. I didn't have the vehicle information. you know, and here's what happened. We had a cascade of a small mistake causing a massive failure. if I would've known the vehicle type, if I would've known to look for the logo on the side. I wouldn't have gotten the wrong vehicle. Now, this part also is a little tough because to a certain point you have to hedge against everybody else too, because look for that chauffeur. It's, Hey, I sent the text. I'm sitting outside. Look, as soon as I found out I'm texting the chauffeur, I'm calling their dispatch. There's a lot of things there that I think could have been improved, but what happened in that scenario is it was a couple small things that could have been done better. That ultimately cascaded and went off the deep end. And look, we've heard this in a different story of, Hey, I came outside, I looked for the chauffeur, right? And you mentioned not getting a text. I looked for the chauffeur. I couldn't find the chauffeur. I got an Uber. You're not charging me for that trip. I'm not paying for that. And in New York right now, they're playing a game called Mystery Gate. And what's happening, I fly into LaGuardia all the time. I can't tell you how many times the gate changes. But now we're hearing stories in the New York area where they're even changing the terminal. So I've got a chauffeur at Terminal One. The plane lands at terminal two. If that chauffeur's not tracking it on flight aware and dispatch, or someone else doesn't catch it, they might find out the last second. Now that passenger's gonna say, oh, the chauffeur was a no show. They get another vehicle. As a business owner, you still had to pay the chauffeur to be out there. You still missed the potential for another trip, and that's exactly what happened with mine, that chauffeur was still on site. He sat there. Now, I'll tell you right now. By the time we figured it all out, it wasn't even my pickup time yet. So before that pickup time even rolled around, I'm already texting a show from Lane Dispatch. No, but that's another trip they could have taken that. And, and not only that, what do you, you know, on the other side of that, I can tell you right now as the business owner side, it's, well, we didn't do anything wrong. Should we have to comp the trip? Should we, you know,

Ken Lucci 33:43

It, no, once it becomes a pissing contest, as far as I'm concerned, the business has lost credibility. It's our job to build in fail safes. I'll give you a great example. Yes, we should 100% send a text message. Okay, but what if I'm on the phone? And a lot of the people that this industry deals with a pretty high profile, think a lot of themselves and they're doing business, okay? So the answer is the text message gets sent and you are displaying on your tablet, Ken L. And. When he approaches you, when he approaches, you say his name is your name. Ken Lucci. Yes, it is. When you get in the car my, uh, manifest as I'm taking you to American Airlines Flight 1 23 to Charlotte, correct? Yes. I mean, you've gotta build in fail safe safes and what unfortunately. TNCs, all their fail safes are based on tech and engineering. It's all an

James Blain 34:54

Well, it's more,

Ken Lucci 34:55

that equation.

James Blain 34:56

but for them, the tech is the part they have more control over. Like you said, in this scenario, if we knew that we've got somewhere like the MGM where there's tons of limos, boom number one, get the sign out. We know that we need to confirm the passenger's name and last name, boom. Two. When you do your trip overview, even if I would've ended up in the wrong vehicle, he would've caught it at the trip overview. If the sign was there, never would've ended up in the wrong vehicle. If, there's three different fail safes there that would've caught it. Now the problem here becomes, and this is to my point, when I walked out. There was a woman standing in front of a vehicle with her sign waiting for her passenger. I had a text that said, I'm outside. There's only one other vehicle there. I've gotta make that assumption. So I I'll give you another great example. You're anxious to always hit, you know, en route on location, all these buttons. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten in a vehicle through my travels. This guy, literally, he's putting it in drive. We're moving and he's putting a seatbelt on and messing with the phone and trying to put the, the pastor's in route and I'm going. Bud. Bye bud. Bud, can we, can we get your stuff done before we start moving? These for us are all training issues. And again, I think the difference here is that we, to a certain extent, don't have as many digital guardrails, but part of what we're doing that makes everything so unique is the fact that we have. Chauffeurs that are getting outta the vehicle. There's a huge difference between getting in the taxi line and I will share and, and I'm gonna gross a ton of people out and I apologize, but look, I got in a taxi and went over to in and out'cause I was in a hurry. I got outta that taxi and wheel I that back where my wallet was and where I'd been sitting. My pants were damp. You can figure out what I sat in on your own, but it was the most disgusting moment for me. And thank God when we got in the vehicle, I told my wife, I said, I'll get in this side. You get in the other side. She got lucky. She sat on the dry side. It's Vegas. I'll let you guys figure out what I was sitting

Ken Lucci 37:07

Well, listen, that's gonna be the future of AVS as well. Okay? and I'm just gonna

James Blain 37:11

look, you got a driver in there, he doesn't even notice. What's

Ken Lucci 37:14

No, it, it's gonna be even worse, but. the industry has to wake up for this. They have to wake up to this and listen, I love the conferences at a great time, in Vegas, but at some point there has to be a higher level conversation about why the industry is not growing in certain segments. Now, I'll give you an example. Airport travel. Is growing at about 5% annually, and the biggest growth area is first class. Then you tell me why our airport service is flat as a pancake.

James Blain 37:57

Oh well, and let me take that further. Why in the hell if I am taking a limousine? I am that first class passenger. I sit in the front of the aircraft, I get on the plane first. I get all my perks. Why in the hell if you are that first class passenger and you order a black car and you do an indoor greet, do you have to walk 10 miles to go over? I see this in all kinds of different airports where they literally have taken what used to be the parking for the limo right there. And they've moved it further from the, there are places where literally ride share has found ways to make it a shorter trip to ride share than it is to limo. There's a couple places where that's still not an issue, but the problem becomes, if it's more inconvenient for me as the first class passenger to take, what should be the first class ground transportation service, what is that gonna do?

Ken Lucci 38:56

No, it's what we talked about it on stage. we talked about the biggest threat being we lose premium location at the airports. It's gotta be best in class and it's gonna be the shortest walk. If it's not the shortest walk, we're gonna lose market share. And the time to do that is when all of these airports are gearing up towards. AV future. I mean, I guarantee you they are talking about this. Now what are we gonna do with the AV vehicles? Okay. And I'm just gonna go out on a limb and tell you, a lot of airports can't stand drivers. They can't stand us because we don't do things in the right manner, but the future of airport transfers for the top 1%. The market is growing. We are our own worst enemies by having not as convenient technology. it's just not. and the second of all,

James Blain 39:56

Well, but you can train around it.

Ken Lucci 39:59

you can, but we, that's where I was

James Blain 40:01

It's not ideal.

Ken Lucci 40:03

But, but you, you know, I don't mind in a restaurant. If my food comes out a little bit later and it takes me like, it's the chocolate souffle rule, chocolate souffle, you have to order it at the beginning because it takes 20 minutes to Okay? But my whole point is, is if, if the quality of the service and the quality of the product, it requires me to wait a little bit longer or do something differently, I'm okay with it. But you know, I, I think we're at a crossroads in this, in the industry right now because there's an, another threat on the horizon is the avs. Okay. It's out there. it's gonna, it's a, it's a, when, not a nev. So we have an opportunity to, to crack the code on the tech because our typical client. the overweight 60-year-old executive is retiring. We need to get the next level of hotshot private equity guys, and gals, the road warriors that are 30 to 40, that see us as a perk. But I don't call it a perk when the service level is not demonstrably better. To me, it's gotta be, those cues have to be perfect and I'll pay extra for it. Be honest with you, I didn't even look at the bill. I mean, and I'm sorry, I, I maybe it's just a lot of, when you survey people about their ride share and you ask them how many of your routine users check your bill, you know, like 30% of'em say they don't.

James Blain 41:36

But it's back to that quote I said earlier, Ken, when transportation's done right, transportation's transparent. I'm not gonna look at the bill if everything went perfect, but I can tell you right now if I have a service failure. Then I let the person know and then nothing happens the next day. And then the day after that I get a full price bill and I let you guys know and nobody followed up with me. Right. And look, I'll tell you one of the cool things we did in Vegas, and we've never done this before, is we filmed the presentation I gave, and I gotta tell you everything except the service failures we're talking about are things that are covered in that. We'll drop a link in it below, but literally, we have to think of this as. Booking to billing and everything in between, A service failure like that happens and, I've seen this happen. I had, Even larger companies have these issues. I, I took my kids to Disneyland and we stayed at a Marriott property, We stayed in the peak of the season. Now we had all kinds of issues. This was just after COVID. There was no maintenance staff in the hotel. There was no room service. the first room, the sewage backed up into the bathroom. The second room, the AC was broken. The third room I finally gave up. We left the day early. I was like, screw it, I'm done. I'm not gonna try another room. We literally left a day early and it took the Disney company. Seven months for them to get back to me and do something. They gave me a refund, but it was seven months of sitting on that. There

Ken Lucci 43:08

that point it

James Blain 43:09

reason at that point,

Ken Lucci 43:10

point, it's almost like you are adding insult to injury. Fuck you

James Blain 43:14

and that was,

Ken Lucci 43:14

what I say.

James Blain 43:15

And I'm like, really, really? But, but I can tell you right now, that was, and, and, and I grew up going to Disneyland. I like Disney. I really do. That was the last Disneyland trip I took because what happened, it was through, and this is the same crap we deal with with affiliates. It was a good neighborhood hotel. So Marriott says it's not their problem. Disney says it's a Marriott problem. They go back and forth and by the time Disney makes it right, I'm like, dude, I don't even care. F it. I wrote you guys up and they didn't even get back to me. The only reason I found out is because, thank God, I had booked this all through Costco, and Costco had been chasing him, and Costco sent me a note and said, Hey, you should check your credit card statement. So you've got literally like the Spider-Man meme. Maybe John could get that up. Well, they're all standing there pointing at each other. It's nobody's problem and I'm screwed. and I think that one of the biggest things that we run into, and I talked about this in that presentation again, if you wanna know like billing. All the way through, right? Booking to billing all of it. Go watch that. But I think one of the biggest things is that the way we handle failure defines us not only personally, but professionally. And I can tell you right now, when I asked that room of people, how many times have you had a service failure that you jumped on, that you reached out to the client personally, and you locked in a client for life? All the hands went up. Unfortunately, you're not gonna know how many times you had a service failure and it cost you that client.

Ken Lucci 44:47

Right, and what you experienced is a teachable moment because if the operator treats it as well, that was Jane's fault. Or the operator treats it as a one-off, as it'll never

James Blain 45:00

or they mark it as a no-show.

Ken Lucci 45:01

Right. And, they say that when a problem occurs, it's probably somewhere like the third or fifth time it's happened.

James Blain 45:09

Right.

Ken Lucci 45:10

Right? You just didn't know about it before. That could have been solved so many different ways. I agree with you, the nonsense emails. I mean, no offense, my laptop is packed 15 minutes before,

James Blain 45:23

Do you, you, you, can send it to me the night before and the chances are you're gonna catch me in bed. I I had a chauffeur call me one night. I, I, and again, by the way, everybody talks about the negative, right? But just remember the negative, what gets talked about. I had a chauffeur call me the night before and in his time zone, it was like 7:00 PM for me. Guess what? It was like 10:00 PM at night. I'm getting ready to have an early flight. I gotta go all the way across the country. And he wakes me up at night just to tell me he's my chauffeur tomorrow So we like, you know, the number of time zones, right? Can you imagine if I was flying to Hawaii and I was in New York and he called me at 7:00 PM his time. Good luck. You know.

Ken Lucci 46:03

Look, at the end of the day. there's always going to be room for boutique service types and boutique service levels. And at the end of the day, people like to do business with people, but the more we take what we do as a transaction from A to B, the more we deserve to lose market share to Uber and avs. My message to the operator that that happened to, first of all, my message to the operator that, that, you know, I, I took, I gave him a five star review, is to celebrate the successes, right? And what did I like about it? The guy used my name. I loved seeing my name on the little, the little tablet. The guy used my name, Mr. Luci, it's a pleasure to take care of you this morning. People pay extra to be treated extra special. Okay.

James Blain 47:00

Well, your name is the most beautiful sound to you,

Ken Lucci 47:04

anyway, no, seriously, the,

James Blain 47:07

true.

Ken Lucci 47:08

when you get in the vehicle, just the added questions. Is this music okay for you? Is the temperature okay? You've got spring water if you want it. The last thing he leaves me with is kinda like, you know, it's the icing on the cake. Mr. Lucci, it's been a pleasure taking care of you today. Is there anything else I can do for you? Do you need transportation at your final destination? Nope. It's all taken care of. Thank you very much. and you know, that's the primer for me to hand this guy a$20 bill. I worry about from our perspective, from the industry perspective, I worry that we, the tech is getting there, but not enough companies are demanding that the protocols be used this certain way.

James Blain 47:54

It

Ken Lucci 47:54

And

James Blain 47:55

and systems

Ken Lucci 47:56

the other thing is if you are expecting to charge five star prices. Good is not good enough. You have got to deliver exceptional every time, and when you don't, you better learn from it. The reaction is, I apologize. There's obviously been communication issues because my driver should have used your name and confirmed your location. Before he put the vehicle in drive. that happened to me a couple times when I drove down in Clearwater Beach. These people didn't speak English. They got in the back of my car. I'm like, and I just happened to know the client I was picking up. Right? I'm like, this is not so-and-so, I'm like, excuse me, I think you're in the wrong vehicle. I get that the one-offs, but when something like that comes to your attention, you have to back up and say, how could I have prevented this? And it's not just, okay, I'm gonna send a text message next time. No, it's text message, it's tablet, it's using the person's name. It's all of the service cues we talk about.

James Blain 49:04

I will tell you right now I am a firm believer in lifelong learning. We're not gonna live long enough to learn everything, but you should try to learn something new every day until you die. And I can tell you right now, one of the things that this opened up for me, and I already kind of knew this to a certain extent, that the text messaging, things like that weren't standardized. And we did a push at one point within Pax to try and create a standardization for that. But I can tell you right now, this for me has got a new focus on that Man. Think about it. If, if every time I got black car service, I knew that I'd get the text that said, hi, my name is Tim. I'm in this vehicle. I'm out front. A lot of the things that I've mentioned are logistical problems. They are natural people problems, and all of them that we've discussed so far would be solved by simple systems and consistency. I.

Ken Lucci 49:55

and I'm just gonna be the one to say it.'cause I know you worry about what people say about you.

James Blain 50:00

Oh boy.

Ken Lucci 50:01

I don't give a, I

James Blain 50:02

You don't, you don't worry about what people say about me.

Ken Lucci 50:04

No, I don't worry about what people say about you. No. Okay. Just like, just like the FAAA. Every pilot goes through the same checklist, whether he works for American, United, et cetera, et cetera. You know, the networks have to get together and they have to demand consistency. You know, the sad part is they don't really like each other that much. I, so Is the question then what you do is you get maybe. One network and then that network works with all of their affiliates to say, here is the collective protocol that everybody in our sphere is going to use. So if you get a hundred million dollar company and there's about five over a hundred million, and one of them, one of them gets together. With their top 10 affiliates and they say, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get together and we're gonna create total consistency in the experience. Okay? Everything from, you know, how you greeted, what you're gonna be greeted with, the tablet use, et cetera. I think it starts to make a difference ideally. It would be nice for the top three networks to get together and do that, but I think it could be done with one of the major networks taking it seriously. It's not secret, but it's not secret sauce, by the way.

James Blain 51:32

Well, but, but it's a standard and we've built the infrastructure at PAX to do that. And one of the things that we're gonna be focusing on, and I don't want to go too far in, into revealing this because it's something that we're working on and that'll be coming out later on this year. We are putting the infrastructure in place for there to be that type of distribution. Four networks to be able to say, Hey, I want everybody to meet this standard. I want everybody to have gone through this training, and I wanna be able to validate and do that. We're also working with insurance companies to do that because one of the things that we have that's unique to our industry is it's a very low barrier to entry. It is very, very easy to get into our industry. It's one of our strengths, but it also shows up as a weakness.

Ken Lucci 52:18

It's a massive weakness.

James Blain 52:20

well, but I, and I'll tell you again, I've made it my mission through what we're doing, restructuring the software and the way things work at pax. To be able to allow that level of transparency so that networks can now connect to their affiliates. I can see if I'm sending it to someone, hey, whether or not they've done that. We started that journey a long time ago when we created our affiliate directory. We have a company directory where you can go online and you can see every single PAX member in the country as long as they've opted in to be on that map. We're taking that even further in the future and allowing you to actually validate that they're doing what they say they're doing. And I think in my mind, that becomes the future because of the fact we are not a heavily regulated industry in that sense, at least on the chauffeur side. I think the more we can do to be transparent with each other and know the standards that we're at, the more we're all gonna naturally raise the bar. It was one of the things that when Bruce and I started building pacs, we always wanted to do, was to figure out how to create a standard that is not enforced, but is known by the industry, and the industry can decide, Hey, I'm only gonna do business with operators at this standard. That was always our dream.

Ken Lucci 53:35

it's like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. it's like an Angie contractor where there's plenty of analogies to use, but I firmly believe that this is the biggest threat to the market share. In the industry. Okay, I'm gonna leave you with one thing. the other day somebody comes to me and says, you know, I'm getting completely outta the airport business completely. And I said, okay. Well, all I can tell you is every company that I've seen do that has lost corporate market share. Well, what do you mean? Look, it's the milk and bread. It's the entry level service that gets corporations to use. You will, they keep using you for groups and meetings. Sure. But now, if you don't do their airport, how do you know the person that does their airports isn't gonna be invited to do their groups and meetings? I said, I think it's shortsighted. I think you're being very shortsighted.

James Blain 54:34

were you in this session when they talked about the CEO's daughter, Ken, and So, so look, you're nailing it. You're knocking it outta the park, and I think this is a great place to leave it because one of the sessions they brought up that A CEO of a company came to their transportation provider and said, Hey, my daughter's getting married. I need you to take care of it. I need buses. I need everything. And instead of saying, absolutely, we have some partners, we'll bring people in, we'll quarterback it, we'll get it taken care of. They said, well, we're really sorry that we just don't do that kind of work. And so what happened? They bid it out. They got someone on the retail side, they knocked it outta the park, and the guy said, man, it was the best day ever. Wedding's daughter. Guess who ran away with the corporate contract?

Ken Lucci 55:17

that suburban company, I know the story, I know the two companies that were involved. That was a$300,000 account. And what clinched it is the owner of the suburban company that did the wedding

James Blain 55:30

Yeah. on site. The day of the wedding and he had Quarterbacking personally,

Ken Lucci 55:35

quarterbacking, right? he inconvenienced himself on a Saturday morning to make sure that his

James Blain 55:40

No, he made an investment in his business is what he did.

Ken Lucci 55:44

1000%. So, you know, again, if as an industry we want to grow. You don't grow by adding transactions. You grow by adding quality, and then the transactions come and the transactions will come at your price. Not at the lowest common denominator that's out there. I think that's a good place to leave. Are you taking us out?

James Blain 56:07

think so. I think the, the big lesson here is get your systems, get your processes, make it to where you've got the same level that Ken was talking about with the chauffeur. He had that muscle memory. I talk about The first show forever rode with when I got back from my first show. It is one of my favorite memories. Everything done right, everything perfect. And I remember the feeling I was left with. I think if you focus on creating systems that give people that feeling, you're a hundred percent there. And with that, I think we will close it out. If you haven't liked, if you haven't subscribed, like subscribe, leave us a comment, let us know what you want to hear more about. And as always, thank you guys so much for listening to the Ground Transportation Podcast.

Ken Lucci 56:52

Thanks, James. See you next Friday.

James Blain 56:55

I will see you next Friday for sure.

Speaker 2 56:58

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.